And the analogous art test will ensure the obviousness standard is proportional to AI’s capabilities.

The analogous art test limits the scope of prior art to preexisting technologies within the “field of the endeavor” and to those technologies that are reasonably pertinent to the problem solved by the invention.232 This test recognizes the ingenuity of those who examine technology from one sphere of study and apply it to something completely different.233 At some point, the ability to draw inspiration from prior art in one practice area and apply it to solve a problem in a completely different area is nonobvious.234Arguably, AI is best suited to enhancing human capabilities in this particular area of invention.235 Unlike human inventors who sometimes have mental barriers and preconceptions that inhibit looking for inspiration far-afield, AI machines do not have such hang-ups.236 Rather, AI machines simply look for patterns within preexisting technology by assigning values to the data signals they receive.237 Not only will AI better equip humans to look beyond the blurry lines separating one field from the next, but it has the computing power to sift through an endless array of data for a solution to a problem.238

In 1966, in Graham v. John Deere Co., the Supreme Court imposed upon inventors the heightened burden of showing nonobviousness against the wider scope of prior art incorporated by new technologies.239 As a result, once AI is common in a given industry, inventors will have to meet the heightened burden of showing nonobviousness based on what a PHOSITA aided by AI—as well as any other widely available technology—would find reasonably pertinent to the problem solved by the invention.240 Further, in KSR, in 2007, the Supreme Court endowed the PHOSITA with the “inferences and creative steps” that an ordinary worker would exhibit.241 Such a PHOSITA would take advantage of the relevant technologies employed in the industry to solve routine problems.242 Thus, current doctrine accommodates the increasing role that AI plays in inventing by expanding the scope of prior art to include tools that a PHOSITA would have access to and by endowing the PHOSITA with the good sense to use them.243